A Blog About Stock Photography. John specializes in shooting stock photos including a mix of funny animal pictures with anthropomorphized pets (including dogs, cats, cows, elephants, monkeys and more), and concept stock photos for business and consumer communications. John's site includes interviews with photographers and leaders in the stock photo community as well as numerous articles on photography, digital imaging, and the stock photo business.

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

I’m fading fast…at least with social media. I checked facebook tonight for the first time in a week (and realized someone had sent me an important message five days ago…). I have no desire to peruse Pinterest…not to mention that I have some doubts about their terms of use. My eyes start to glaze over at just the thought of that endless stream of shared photos on Google+. My only Linked In participation seems to be confirming people who want to link to me…people I either barely know or don’t know at all. And speaking of not knowing people, my twitter followers just keep increasing whether I tweet or not, and lately it has been mostly not.

Social Media…And No Significant Effect

My primary interest in social media has always been to increase the traffic to my site. Google analytics indicates that just isn’t happening. Out of approximately 1500 unique visitors a day to my site, less than a dozen come from social media sources. While I am hoping social media can provide me with more link juice, that doesn’t seem to be having a significant effect either.

Tired Of Social Media

I guess I am just tired of social media. I seldom get tired of photography. I spent today prepping for a stock shoot I am doing on Friday. That was fun. Friday’s shoot will be fun. I would much rather be creating images that posting them on a social media site. Of course I love it when people enjoy my photography, but not as much as when I enjoy my photography!

Creating Stand Out Stock Photos

I got into stock photography so I could really focus on what I enjoy doing, creating photos that I want to create and that can earn me a good living. Social media has been creeping up on me, stealing time away from what I truly enjoy doing…making those stock images. I am not going to quit social media, but I will be doing just a bit less of it…and a bit more of creating what I hope are stand out stock photos. Stock photos that are needed in the market place, and stock photos that hopefully can stand up to the intense competition that is the stock photo world.

11 comments:

Always important to do what you love and let that drive your enthusiasm online. Never a good idea to force yourself to do anything as it will suck you dry. Luckily for me my only activity is an extension of what I love to do in addition to photography.

A bit of advice... I just got done doing some web marketing consulting for another photographer and I also shared with him the need to cater to one's interests and passions. The benefits of social media activity blossom from such an approach.

I can related to your feelings as well as to your observation. If any social media works for me, then it is Facebook, but other social media outlets hardly ever drive traffic to my site. Best traffic drive - commenting on other blogs(haha, my primary intention to leave this comment isn't to drive traffic to my blog, seriously).